I’ve been thinking about the neighbors I’ve had through the years. Most have been good, some nosy, a few I could have done without, but one neighbor gave the neighborhood kids great fun.
His name was Teder, probably short for Theodore but I really don’t know. He seemed really old to me as a child but I think he was actually in his 50’s.
Teder lived less than a mile from my house. He was our summertime neighbor or at least he did not visit us any other time of the year. He was a single man but his sister and her family lived on our street, so he had relatives close by.
I don’t know how old I was when my father took our family to visit him. It was the only time I saw where his place was. He lived down a dirt road that had lots of ruts in it. At the end of the road there was a barn and a very small building that he lived in. He shared his humble abode with his critters. His chickens were in the house the day we visited. My dad said that Teder had no problem letting all of his animals in if they wanted. We didn’t go inside ourselves but think it would have been quite an experience.
Teder called my mother, ‘Mammy.” She was probably 20 years younger than him but I think it was his way of being respectful. We thought he was loony when he’d call her that. He would stop to visit with my folks on his way past our house. He would always have the same clothes on but I don’t remember them looking dirty or smelling. He would always stay outside, either sitting on the porch steps or a lawn chair. He’d wear a big wool jacket no matter what the temperature. If it was 85 degrees or 65, the wool jacket was a part of his attire.
I don’t know where or if he worked. I know he had a little farm and I guess he grew his own food. He didn’t eat much by the look of him.
The neighborhood children were particularly fond of this eccentric old man because of his mode of transportation. Even though it was the 1950’s Teder drove a wagon pulled by a horse whereever he went. When we saw him coming down the hill toward out house we’d run to our mother. We needed her permission to ride with him and we couldn’t waste time getting it so we’d yell as we ran. She always gave it but we knew never to assume. Once we were allowed to go we’d run to where Teder was. If he was halfway down the hill we would run halfway up. It meant a longer ride on the wagon.
The amazing thing was that what was happening at our house was happening all up and down the street. Kids were getting permission to ride with Teder on his wagon.
Teder was not a talkative fellow. I remember many, many rides on the wagon but I don’t remember him ever talking to us. We would ask him if we could get on and he would nod, pull his horse to a stop and we would hop on. He often went to see his sister who didn’t live that far up the street from us so the ride was only about a quarter of a mile long. There were times though that he would go into town. On those days we were allowed to ride further, not much further but we relished every inch. We never minded the walk back home.
Riding on the back of that wagon I could imagine what it was like to be a pioneer, watching the road pass beneath my feet as we slowly made our way into the west. Never mind the road was paved with asphalt and I was actually going north. Never mind that I rode in cars, talked on telephones, and watched Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger on television. When I was on the back of that old wagon being pulled by one old horse I felt like a pioneer. It was an experience I’ll always be grateful for.
One day Teder was found dead deep in the forest behind his house. People speculated that he knew it was his time and wanted to die like he lived. Alone. Or maybe he really was just out for a walk. However it ocurred when Teder passed away he took with him one of the last reminders of what life was like for his generation.
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Growing up in the 1950’s, was an unusual time I think. World War 2 required so much from our country and its’ citizens. I think the memory of it made people appreciate one another more. People were willing to be involved with each other in a way that we do not see today. I know this was true in our neighborhood.
My neighborhood was just a street with houses on both sides. Most people had an acre or two of property although some folks had more. A lot of the neighbors were related to one another which sometimes made for interesting dynamics. Two families with small farms gave property to their children as they married. That meant sisters and their husbands or brothers and their wives were also neighbors. My dad’s nephew was our neighbor. It was a close little community for a good while.
When i think ‘neighbor’ the lady who lived in the house next to us comes to mind. Her name was Aggie and she was old enough to be my mother’s mother. Every morning at as close to 10:00 am as circumstances would permit, Aggie would knock on our back door while opening it at the same time. These actions were accompanied by her hollering, “Yoo Hoo!”. She did not wait to be invited in, she knew she was welcome. My mother would stop whatever she was doing and the two of them would share a cup of coffee and visit. Looking back on it she must have been a great help to my mother. I’m sure she shared her own experiences on running a house and raising children. The visit between these neighbors was quick, only long enough to drink a cup of coffee. The amazing thing is the very next morning around 10 it would happen all over again. Every day of the week (except Saturday and Sunday) we would hear the “Yoo Hoo!” and there would be Aggie to visit for a few minutes.
Our neighbors helped each other. My mother became the neighborhood beautician when I was around 5. I guess the other mothers were afraid to cut their daughter’s hair. Mine was not. My mother was well acquainted and very comfortable with scissors. My bangs were the shortest on any girls forehead on the North American continent. I cried myself to sleep more than once after my mother cut my bangs. She would use four fingers from my eyebrows to measure where they should end and then she would clip away. I warned my friends about the bang debacle. Goodness they could look at me and see it. But my mother did hair cuts for free and how could their mothers resist that. So all the girls in my neighborhood had the same hairstyle, with bangs 3 inches off the forehead. If my mother cut your hair it was the style of her choosing you went home with. No one cared when they were really young and so she was always clipping away at some body’s head. Once the girls got older they didn’t want the four finger bang and went elsewhere or cut their own hair. I on the other hand had an exposed forehead for many years! In spite of my dire warnings, my mother saved our neighbors a lot of money.
Children were a big part of the life and activity on our street. We were always in each others yards or houses. My parents never left us home alone but T]that wasn’t true for some of the other folks on the street. Sometimes the kids from across the street would be locked out of their house in the evenings while their parents were gone. When this happened my dad would go over to their house, crawl through a window and unlock the door for them. He would turn on the lights and make sure the kids were okay. Nothing was ever said by anyone but everyone knew that my dad would watch out for those kids.
I spent hours and hours with Aggie’s daughter. She was about 15 years older than I was and I thought I was so important when I was with her. As a married couple, her and her husband asked me to be their very first dinner guest. I had to sit on Sears Roebuck catalogs to reach the table but I didn’t think of myself as a little kid at that dinner. This gal treated all the neighborhood kids special and we loved her for it. In the summer we would all pile in her car and go to Twin Lakes to swim. She would pack a picnic supper and off we’d go. In the winter she’d take me ice-skating. I hung out with her while she ironed and dusted for her because I wanted to. We were neighbors and friends.
I know there has to be some neighborhoods today that would rival the one I grew up in, I just haven’t seen one myself since I was a little kid.
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